03/03/2023 Standing Committee | Summit
“The Council of Europe Summit is a critical opportunity for the Heads of State and Government of the 46 member States to come together – for Ukraine, for Europe and for the Council of Europe. Our wish for the Summit is to have concrete deliverables that will lead to a real and lasting positive impact for the citizens of Europe,” said Martin Eyjólfsson, Permanent Secretary of State at Iceland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, speaking today at the opening of an exchange of views on “the #RoadToReykjavik: towards the Council of Europe of the future”, organised in the framework of the PACE Standing Committee meetings in The Hague.
“The Assembly’s Standing Committee meeting in Reykjavik, held on 15 May, the day before the Summit, can only serve to increase its visibility. This will also highlight the pillar-structure of our organisation and our democratic legitimacy,” he said. The Icelandic Presidency “places great importance on the inclusion of as many actors as possible in the discussion on the future of our organisation. The Assembly, as a statutory body of the Council of Europe, is of course one of our key partners,” Mr Eyjólfsson underlined.
According to Council of Europe Deputy Secretary General Björn Berge, “there is no doubt that the Summit will be a historic opportunity to redefine the future of the Council of Europe in a fundamentally changed European geopolitical landscape”. It is a Summit in which “we’ll have to affirm and unambiguously commit to our values of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, as opposed to the violence, death and destruction pushed by those sitting in the Kremlin right now,” Mr Berge said, addressing the Standing Committee members.
“I have no doubt that Mr Putin and his supporters will face justice: there will be accountability for their crimes, and we at the Council of Europe must play a key role here. The Reykjavík Summit will have to be a ‘Summit of unity’ and a Summit where we take concrete steps to strengthen democracies in Europe. And we need to be forceful and innovative,” he concluded.
Addressing Assembly members, the President of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities Leendert Verbeek stressed that “the threats and challenges we are facing today affect all our societies without exception and all levels of governance. A sustainable response to these challenges requires a determined synergy between central and local governments, whether their territorial dimension is regional, provincial or municipal.”
This is why, he added, “we advocate a strengthening of the role of the Congress within the Organisation. It is a question of better supporting local and regional authorities in their missions with our citizens and of translating this support into political terms for the Assembly, which represents them at European level. We hope that we can continue to count on the support of your Assembly, on the support of you, the national elected representatives from all over Europe, in this respect.”
Jacobine Geel, President of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, underlined that our world is in transition, and this transition is of a global nature. "We are faced with new challenges in our personal lives, but perhaps even more so when it comes to our commitment to democratic values and the advocacy for human rights," she said.
"It is my hope that if we join forces, both as a network of states, institutions and organisations that promote and embody these basic values, and as a community of individuals who acknowledge the fact that each and everyone of us can make a difference, this transition can be a just one", she concluded.